


Bill Denbrough Grows up

by Aestheticdenbrough



Series: losers growing up [1]
Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Big Brother, Cute, Gen, It's Alive, babysitter, bad babysitter, bill doesn't like him much, georgie is born, horror movie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2019-06-13 00:16:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15352011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aestheticdenbrough/pseuds/Aestheticdenbrough
Summary: Georgie is born and young Bill Denbrough embarks on a journey of learning to love him.





	1. Act I: Little Brother

The day Georgie Denbrough was born, Bill is five years old. He is innocence personified, a small boy with messy tufts of red hair with a gappy smile and has absolutely _no_ clue how to match his clothes.

The day Georgie Denbrough is born is a day that changed Bill's life forever. He's rushed to the hospital with his mother and father, flinching at his mother's cries but promised that she'll be alright.

He sits in the waiting room, kicking his legs back in forth while sitting in his chair because he's _just_ not tall enough for his feet to hit the ground, which he notes to himself as disappointing, since his father said that if he ate his vegetables he'd grow big and strong.

A man in a mint paper suit (that Bill thinks looks so _especially_ silly that he regards it with a giggle) comes out of the room, giving the young boy a kind smile. "You're a big brother!" The man exclaims.

Bill's first reaction is confusion, his parents had told him he would be, even read him picture book after boring picture book about becoming a sibling. He never thought it would be this way. He gets up and the man leads him into the room. The first thing that draws his eye is his mother in the bed that looks like a cage on the sides, which fills him with a vague concern, _is she in trouble?_

Next, he hears the cooing of what sounds like a lamb but really in his mother's arms is a small bundle wrapped in blue. "Billy, this is your little brother, his name is George," his mother tells him, gesturing for him to come closer.

He does as she tells him, walking over cautiously and standing on his toes to peer over the cage-edges of the bed, studying the small pink face that apparently belongs to George. 

The small bundle breaks out into a panicked shriek and Bill jumps backwards to avoid it only slightly, shoving his pointer fingers in his ears, "I d-don't think h-he likes me," he admits sheepishly from his spot now against the wall.

His mother chuckles airily, trying to soothe the baby while simultaneously trying to coax Bill back to her side. Bill creeps back up, his fingers still shoved in his ears until the cries taper off. "He likes you just fine, he's only overwhelmed," his mother promises sweetly.

Bill nods slightly, trying to look the smaller one over again carefully, "How do I play with it?" He asks, his expression of genuine interest and confusion. "The book said I get to play with it."

His mother laughs nervously, "Not yet, sweetheart, he's too little, but soon enough he'll be chasing you around in the front yard," she says with a smile, looking near reminiscent despite looking into the future, as if she can see it.

The future, albeit different as expected, was not far too enjoyable for Bill Denbrough. The nights following the homecoming of Georgie Denbrough are what he could call downright miserable.

The cries usually start around four in the morning, the sun just peeking over the horizon with her golden glow, a sight Bill enjoys the first _two_ times he's been awakened to see it. After that, he groans in frustration and pure exhaustion. The shrieks never seem to stop throughout the day after that, and his parent's attention from himself is diverted, something he's never experienced, but this will not be the last time.

He finds himself drowning out the screams when he draws. He loves art, especially his own, though one day he'll look back at the babyish scribbles and call them horrible in comparison to what he learns to do, at least he promises himself he'll continue to draw from now on.

The experience of being a big brother even worsens a few weeks later. His parents decide that they need a date night, that it's been far too long. They hire a teenage babysitter they've never hired before out of desperation and her low prices. 

She puts Georgie to bed fine, the Denbrough parents call him an easy baby even if Bill thinks he's far too troublesome. After she gets the baby to sleep, she plops herself on the couch where Bill is sat watching Wonder Pets. She gives him a sickly sweet smile.

"You wanna watch a big kid movie?" She asks, her voice a whisper, almost as if they'd get caught despite the adults being out. Bill likes this a lot, _a taste of maturity._

He grins widely and nods, his parents never let him watch "big kid movies". He's always had a deep curiosity for them, not knowing what the difference could be in a big and little kid movie, but now he'll find out. 

She smiles in her success, going to her pink over the shoulder bag to pull out a DVD case, popping the disk into the video player with ease, guiltless. She sits next to Bill again, pressing play on the front screen. Bill watches the beginning screen, reading it with squinted eyes and effort. _It's Alive._

_The movie couldn't have been that bad- right?_ It ends and Bill is shaking in his spot, crawling into the seemingly unphased teenage girl's lap. He looks up at her smile, trying to mirror it, _to seem cool for the big kid. I am a big kid_ , he reminds himself.

"N-nice movie," he says, trying to ignore his shakiness, because despite the lingering fear, the movie had given him an adrenaline rush that matches no other feeling he's ever felt before.

The days following, Bill can't help but demonize his brother in his mind. He swears that sometimes the small blue eyes flicker to a deep red that threatens to kill him, _just a movie._

_But what if my brother is like the Davis'? Oh god_ , he thinks to himself with a sigh on one of these occasions. He calms himself, _it's a movie. And that baby was worse than my brother anyways_ , he reminds himself, smiling a little. _That baby was worse than my brother_ , and he realizes the crying early in the morning is slightly less constant, and now he looks less like a blob of pink and more like a _person. A cute one._

He looks over the edge of the crib, in at his brother. "I d-don't hate you," he says with a nod. "But j-just so you know. D-don't get any bright ideas. I'm i-in charge here."


	2. Rainy Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill and Georgie spend a rainy day playing together.

At the age of nine years old, Bill Denbrough loves rainy days. He lives for the gray and the stormy and the flashes of light. Real life jump scares like in the movies he loves to watch.

Whenever he wakes up to the plinks of water dropping against his window his blood courses with adrenaline. Today in particular, he awoke early to a powerful boom of thunder, almost too dramatic for it's own good.

He peels the covers from over his legs, kicking them out of the tangled mess that his comforter has become. He presses himself up against the window, his hot breath leaving a soggy spot of fog on the glass as he keeps his eyes trained on the refreshing droplets of water falling to the ground.

He turns on his heel to pull the door open from the crack it was into being fully open. He bounds down the stairs to the kitchen, seeing his mother in front of the toaster with a minty apron around her waist.

"Hi Mom!" He smiles, slipping into the chair easily, kicking his bare legs back and forth. He pulls down his sleep shirt, a college shirt that had been his dad's when he was young.

She smiles slightly at him, just a bit tiredly as she never seems to sleep when she needs to, taking care of her three year old and nine year old, and her husband. Mr. Denbrough is probably the hardest to please.

Bill walked in on them wrestling once, though Richie would tell him a different story about what he'd seen. In his head it makes perfect sense, they didn't have uniforms so they didn't wear anything that could constrict them. 

She puts a plate in front of him wordlessly, two slightly burnt toaster waffles stacked atop each other. The syrup is on the table and she gestures to it as her phone rings, work.

Bill takes the syrup in his hand, popping open the red plastic top and pouring the viscous liquid over his breakfast. He closes it and notices that even despite his care in handling it, his hands are sticky and covered in syrup.

He just shrugs to himself, nine year old boys never seem to mind if they're sticky or gross. He takes his fork, picking up the entire circle of waffle and taking bites of it off the fork as if it's a waffle kebob. His mom notices as she hangs up, sighing deeply.

"Did I raise you in a barn?" She asks, grabbing a butter knife and the fork from Bill's hand, going about cutting the waffles into squares, "And how'd you get this so sticky? God, what am I going to do with you?" She asks herself, walking to the sink to clean her hands, wiping them frustratedly on her apron.

"It w-wasn't my fault! The b-bottle was st-st-sticky already," Bill says defensively, picking up a square of waffle with his fork just a bit too aggressively before shoving it in his mouth and deciding to stay quiet when he sees his mom's expression. The call must have been bad because now she's in a mood.

He eats silently for a few minutes before a family footstep pattern approaches the tile floor. Small chubby legs maneuver to his spot, Georgie smiling at Bill from across the table. "'Morning," the boy says happily, looking to his mother for his breakfast.

Bill smiles softly to Georgie in response, still feeling a lot bad about being scolded, it happens enough that he should be used to it but he's not. His mother smiles warmly at the young boy, the mood of the room lifted by the sunshiney blonde boy's presence.

Bill is thankful for his brother, innocent enough to always put his parents in a good mood. And himself too, Georgie is just _good._

Bill finishes his waffles, standiy carefully to pick up the plate, bringing it to the sink. He kicks the plastic blue stool closer to the sink so he can stand on it and rinse his dishes, the water runs over the mess in a way he finds therapeutic. He just likes water. It comforts him.

He scrubs it gently with the sponge, suds squeezing out of the small yellow object that just hadn't been washed out completely last time. He finishes rinsing the plate and fork, ready for the dishwasher now.

He leaves them to soak in the sink with the others, seeing Georgie nearly done with his own breakfast, "Mom, can Georgie and i-i-i-i-i go play outside? Please?" He begs, putting on his best puppy dog eyed expression to add to the show, though with Georgie involved he'll probably get a positive response.

His mother nods absently as his father comes into the room, her arms lacing around his waist. Bill's immediate reaction is always a sour expression, seeing his parents intimate will always be awkward. 

He turns away as their lips lock together to face Georgie. "Wash y-your hands, booger, we're g-gonna play in the rain," he grins happily, skipping off to the living room and to the hall closet to pull on the rubbery yellow raincoat to protect him from the weather he loves so much.

His eyes scan the dark closet for the boots that match, purchased in a set from the shop a couple blocks away. Georgie's set is somewhere in the closet as well, though his in the color blue to avoid confusion of whose is whose.

He pulls on the coat, moving his arms around awkwardly to hear the awful plasticy sound it makes whenever he moves, he has a love-hate relationship with this coat. He puts his socked feet in the shoes, only in his buttoned coat and his sleep shirt and shoes, but he doesn't mind.

Though he knows his mother will, so he pulls the hood over his messy ginger bed head, shuffling upstairs, the sound of the plastic against plastic following him all the way to his room where he takes off the boots to pull on some sweatpants before yanking the boots back on.

He stomps his way back downstairs now that he's decent, finding Georgie at the bottom of the stairs donning his own coat and boots. He approaches his younger brother, "Your c-coat's unbuttoned, l-l-l-let me help," he smiles softly, getting on his knee to snap the clasps up to Georgie's chin, "All ready."

Georgie smiles at him, nodding happily. Bill takes Georgie's small hand in his own, unlocking and pushing open the heavy door for the two of them. The porch's overhang keeps them from getting wet for a bit, the cool air biting their noses and cheeks despite it only being early fall.

Bill races ahead of the small boy, knowing he's much younger and can't compete but he doesn't really care, just wanting to be in the water sooner. He stands in the middle of the driveway and spins in a circle, his face to the sky and his mouth wide open to catch the droplets on his tongue like snowflakes.

Georgie eventually catches up, scuffing the heel of his boot in a puddle to send mucky water spraying up Bill's legs up to his waist. "You a-hole!" Bill shouts while giggling, doing it back but more carefully, knowing Georgie is much shorter than himself.

They take turns splashing at each other, winding up absolutely drenched in the muddy water of their dirt driveway. Georgie's giggles pierce the mostly quiet scene in a way that brings Bill comfort.

He loves making his brother smile. He's always filled with pride when Georgie calls him his best friend, he can't help but love feeling so high and mighty on Georgie's list. 

He's broken from his thoughts when Georgie pushes him to the ground and he splashes into the water, both of them laughing maniacally about it. Little boys. Entertained by the simplest of things.

Bill stands, water seeping down his pants and dripping down into his gollashes. He gives Georgie a bright smile, showing off his missing teeth on the sides. 

Georgie smiles back, frowning a bit as Bill shivers. "Wanna go back inside, Billy?" He asks worriedly, his eyebrows creasing though it looks odd on such a young child.

"Nah, I'm g-good," Bill promises, kicking another wave of water in Georgie's direction for good measure. 

"No, I'm tired, let's go back inside?" Georgie suggests, really just not wanting his brother to catch his death in this weather but he knows he wouldn't let the two of them go inside just for himself.

Bill nods, agreeing only because Georgie said he is tired. He puts a hand on Georgie's shoulder to lead him back to the porch and back into the house, having left the door unlocked so they could get back in without searching for the spare key.

They enter the house, just slightly warmer than the outside. It's early autumn so they have already stopped using the heating. "G-go put on some dr-dry clothes," Bill tells the younger one, already going to the stairs to go upstairs and change. 

Georgie trudges off to his room, smiling softly to himself about getting Bill to do what he wants, he's slowly been getting better at it over the years of being his younger brother.

Bill changes into some pajamas to keep warm. He pulls on the fuzzy socks slide around the wood floors and down the stairs. He finds Georgie in a Star Wars onesie on the living room couch. 

"Wanna watch a movie, Billy?" He asks, patting the free spot next to himself. Bill smiles slightly and nods, going to the movie shelf, picking up one of their favorites.

He puts the vhs into the player, grabbing the remote to deal with the startup screen. He presses play, the beginning theme of The Labyrinth starting up. 

He sits on the couch next to Georgie, putting an arm around his small frame, "If you're t-tired you should t-t-take a nap," he suggests, getting settled to sleep himself.

Georgie nods, sighing slightly to himself and snuggling into Bill's side before drifting off, maybe he'd actually been tired after all.


	3. Goodbye Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill loses is brother and feels as if he's lost everything, until Eddie comes out of the woodworks with support.

Age eleven is the hardest age in Bill’s life thus far. He had to get his flu shot in September but still gets the flu by the time October rolls around, and that was one of the biggest tragedies he decided he’d experienced in his young life, even worse than the times his mom had hit him for sassing back. He would have missed a week of school had it not been cancelled for the time being with how bad the rain has been, kids having to stay home but also avoid the flooding in many of the buildings in Derry. October seems to bring a month of change in his life and not the positive kind. His brother goes missing and a day later the body of the small boy is brought to the door. Sharon and Zack stand in the doorway but Bill still sees what they’re trying to shield him from. He’ll never be the same after that, he wishes it had just been a fever dream from one of the many naps he’d taken that day, but instead he woke up the next day only to know it was the truth. The rain stops and students go to school again, except Bill, who stays in his family home in solitude most of the time.

The Denbrough family dynamics all shift greatly after Georgie’s death, or at least they seem to. Under some sort of curtain they’d always been that way, and Georgie leaving them has left the curtain wide open and leaves all three of them hurting, but not hurting together. He returns to school in the following month despite the surprise of his teachers. He and his brother had always been close. They had banter like any normal sibling relationship, but it was simple for everyone to tell that they were basically best friends. He surely wasn’t healed by the time he returned to school in December, but he isn’t doing any notable healing in his own home and he can only hope that life will get back on track once he tries to live it like he had before minus one important member. He keeps himself together back at Derry Elementary better than most thought he would. He eats lunch alone in the boys bathroom and that’s when he cries, he isolates himself by choice.

It takes a full four days back at school for him to even talk to his best friend, Eddie Kaspbrak. Eddie spent the month since Georgie’s death and then the four days (more intensely) worrying about his friend. He finally decides to be the one to start their interaction on the playground after school on Friday. “Bill, you haven’t talked to me in like a whole month, are you okay?” he asks in a small voice, nervous to be doing this at all. He doesn’t do well with loss or grief or any of it. People think he’d understand because of his dad but truthfully he doesn’t remember him nearly at all. He lacks the experience and memories to know how to comfort Bill through this, but he damn well will try his best. Most kids around the age of eleven or twelve in this grade forgot about Bill in the last week since he’s been gone so long now. Eddie is his best friend, though, and he really always has been. Bill is the strong one and seeing him so down now makes Eddie feel on the verge of an anxiety attack whenever he thinks about it.

“What? Oh I-I’m fine,” Bill says after a look of surprise crosses his face at the original question. He doesn’t know very well how to talk about how he feels so he just elects not to at all. This causes Eddie an endless amount of frustration. He can’t help if he doesn’t know what needs it, it obviously has something to do with Georgie’s passing, but there could be so many layers to the pain he’s feeling that couldn’t be understood unless he tells someone about it. Bill starts to walk a bit faster and Eddie almost jogs to keep up with him because of how much shorter his own legs are. Bill is taller but not stronger and not often faster. Eddie notices the change that has taken place in him since his return. Bill’s eyes have lost their luster and his hair looks flat and unkempt, it doesn’t look like he’s been taking care of himself, his normal preteen acne worse than it had been before. Even worse is that he’s thinner than when Eddie had last seen him. Now Bill has always been a lean young man but now he just looks downright too boney. He considers the idea that his mom would be mad about it but he doesn’t care so much. 

“Do you want to come to my place for dinner tonight?” Eddie asks quickly, he wants to make sure he’s eating even through his parents’ grief and how much they may be hurting and unable to do anything. That’s what he thinks is happening anyways, and if he can help at all he will, and considering what his mom make for food and keeps in the house, and judging by her own state, that if Bill spends enough time around there maybe Eddie can even ensure he holds a healthy weight. His mom always warns him of the dangers of being underweight. Heart failure, fainting, anemia… so many things that could happen that make his heart race just to think about. Georgie is already gone, he can’t let Bill become gone too. He couldn’t leave him and let that happen to his best friend.

“Uh, yeah, s-sure,” Bill says, still looking at the ground as his feet hit against the pavement on his way home. Snow is probably going to come soon, and that’s one of the most exciting parts of winter for Eddie and Bill and their friends Richie and Stanley. Bill was going to just go home and microwave ramen like he usually does for his dinner, but going over to the Kaspbrak’s doesn’t sound like a bad idea, he probably needs it after it’s been so long since last time. Only two times he has gone over there to eat pop out to him. The time his mom wanted to meet him to approve of him being one of Eddie’s friends, he could tell from then how overprotective she could be, but she makes heartier meals than the stuff his mom puts in front of him on her different health food kicks. She feels like she’s growing old and artichokes will make her feel younger, and maybe even grow her son all the way down to a seed. The other time he remembers is the time that he and their other two friends went to dinner over there for Eddie’s birthday, and they learned that Sonia can buy one hell of a walmart birthday cake.

He also agrees to the offer because Eddie doesn’t usually try and make plans, Bill is always in charge of that, which means Eddie worked up some kind of courage to ask him, which really means a lot to the ginger boy. He’s going through a lot and sometimes it feels better to be taken care of than to take care of other people all the time. He feels unsettled around Sonia Kaspbrak but Eddie is still one of his very favorite people. He jogs ahead of Eddie to get home faster in hopes that he won’t get in trouble with his parents. They don’t pay much attention when he is home but they freak out if he’s home too late on occasion, and he just always wants to make sure today isn’t the day they’ll freak out on him. The walk home is uneventful as always, he picks up the key under the mat at his front door and lets himself in and shouts to announce his arrival. He kicks off his sneakers and puts his backpack down to get out his homework, he has so much to catch up on with how much he’s missed now. He takes the folder and his pencil to the empty, dimly lit kitchen. He puts it on the table where he once sat with his brother and ate pancakes and threw pieces of rice at each other. He sighs, the memories are the worst part. It will be nice to get out of the house more now that he thinks of it.

All the space around him feels cold and lonely most of the time, and he’s slowly learning to accept it no matter how much he hates it and it doesn’t feel right. The math is hard because he hasn’t been there to learn it, he’ll have to ask Richie about it tomorrow, he’d offered Bill a helping hand on the work knowing that he understands it and Bill probably won’t. The writing assignments are the easiest because they always have been. He’s always had a wondrous imagination and he’s been writing to cope with what he’s been dealing with a lot in the past month. He write more morbidly than young kids usually do, but it shows a lot of what he’s gone through in different ways. He writes and draws things of people missing limbs and stories of people dying, and if anyone cared enough to read it they’d probably be concerned.

He lets his mom know when it’s time for him to go to Eddie’s for dinner before he leaves, it’s already dark but she doesn’t fight him on saying he’ll walk. He pulls on a sweatshirt and puts his shoes back on, making sure all his school stuff finds its way into his backpack again so he doesn’t show up to school with nothing that he needs to have. He doesn’t like walking around in the dark, scared he’ll meet a similar fate to his brother, but he doesn’t want to be late to Eddie’s and he knows his parents won’t drive him or go with him, and he doesn’t really want that either. The most nervousness comes along when he stands on the porch of the house and rings the doorbell and it’s Sonia who greeted him. He gives her a smile and walks in once he’s invited. He meets Eddie upstairs in his room and they play cards together until they’re called down to eat. For dinner it’s chicken and some fries baked in the oven out of a box. It’s good though, and the dinner is slightly less quiet than it is at home, at least he and Eddie talk. Sonia just listens and gives them a look when they get too loud.

It wasn’t too bad, and the walk home is peaceful. He keeps his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground except when he needs to look up to get bearings on what direction he needs to go. He gets home and lets himself in to find that his parents are already in bed or at least quiet and out of sight. That in itself though, is a blessing.


End file.
